What Little Girls Are Made Of
by HaiJu
Summary: Phantom and his younger double save Amity Park from a monstrous ghost, nearly destroying themselves in the process. The Fentons have always hunted ghosts; now it's time to save one.
1. Hot and Cold

The Fentons picked their way through chunks of concrete and past the smoking iron skeletons of cars. The ozone-sour, burning stench of ectoplasm hung in the air in an almost tangible fog.

Maddie pulled her goggles over her stinging eyes. Nothing moved. Two city blocks had been flattened, leaving ragged hills and furrows of smoking rubble. The news helicopter had gone down ten minutes before that last, massive attack, so they weren't sure what they would find when they'd ventured outside the ghost shield. She kicked aside a twisted hunk of fender. Thank god they'd evacuated the city in time.

It had been an average day in Amity Park, until some spiritualist fanatic had stolen the Fenton Bazooka and locked it on overdrive, ripping an enormous hole into the ghostly dimension. It had reached apart of that world deeper and darker than any of them had ever experienced.

The monster had come from the breach, just barely squeezing in through a rip a hundred yards wide. It was four-legged and had something that might be called a head, but there the comparison to earth's fauna ended. It was a thing of indescribable complexity, with row upon row of boiling red eyes clustered on its brow and flowing down to the neck and forelegs. It had tentacles sheathed in glossy green-black scales that rippled over its body like a sea of worms. Great violet crystals jutted from its sides and back. Black smoke curled through a thousand rows of curving fangs. Its aura simmered a deep, vivid red, and painted the clouds into blood.

The city's newly developed ghost defenses were blown away in minutes, except for the shields. There were a few who fought back-the woman in red with her jet sled, a handful of amateur ghostbuster-wannabes, the Fentons themselves. One by one they fell. She remembered seeing the red-clad ghost hunter swatted aside like a fly. Maddie herself had woken up on a stretcher outside the hospital with Jack holding her hand. They'd somehow made it back with cuts and bruises. It seemed almost shameful, considering the ordinary people who'd suffered far worse.

All their expertise and prowess in ghost hunting could not stop it. They had no chance of distracting or mollifying the creature. It had no agenda, no plot; no desire other than utter destruction. Even Phantom, the self-appointed defender of their city and a powerful ghost in his own right, could only bring it to a standstill for half an hour.

The Fentons had watched with the rest of Amity Park in dizzying high definition as the news helicopter circled just out of range. Green smashing against green, shattered buildings flying left and right, Phantom hurtling himself into the creature like a torpedo against a glacier. It had dawned on Maddie with a sickening certainty that Phantom had held himself back, significantly, in his ordinary fights. He dug out deep, smoking pits into the thing's green hide. They dripped gallons of vivid green ectoplasm, but the thing only roared louder. It did not stop.

In the end Phantom fell to his hands and knees, spent. A single claw would have crushed him in an instant.

Then a new ghost streaked in like a shooting star, peppering the beast with blasts, dividing its attention, giving Phantom the precious seconds he needed to rally. She was small and humanoid-an odd, female echo of Phantom's motif of black and white, with twice the speed and fire. Together they'd driven it step by massive step back, out into the suburbs, where it dug its claws deep into the exposed sewers and would retreat no more. Then Phantom and his new ally had turned their firepower on a nearby building, somehow triggering a massive blast.

The explosion had knocked the chopper out of the sky and left them blind. Silence had fallen. The beast, as far as they could determine, had vanished. For good? The Fentons were the best equipped-and the most curious-to find out.

"Mads." Jacked called. He stood on a rise that might once have been a parking garage. She clambered up the hill of crumbling concrete slabs, avoiding twisted rebars and pockets of glass turned to powder.

The hill ended in a cliff, sloping down into a crater nearly a hundred yards across. Shattered bits of violet crystal lay strewn about in glittering fragments. The Nasty Burger sign jutted up at a crazy angle near the edge, the only hint of what had once stood there.

At the center of the pit lay a dark green mass of congealing ectoplasm the size of a bus. Thick black smoke billowed up from it. Blue flames licked over the twisted, sizzling surface. Maddie shuddered; to solidify ectoplasm like that took an unreal amount of heat.

"They got it," Jack said. He pushed back his goggles and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He left a sooty smear. "I don't believe it."

"Probably took themselves out with it," Maddie said. Two birds with one stone, she would have said even yesterday. Now the thought settled cold and heavy in her chest. Phantom had saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. He could have flown away anytime, escaped to the ghost zone with the rest of the lesser ghosts. He didn't.

Jack tensed beside her, lifting his ectogun. "Look!" He pointed the weapon toward the far side of the crater. Something moved there, stumbling over the rubble. Something bright, ghostly green.

Maddie's heart rate spiked, hope mingling with dread. Had part of the creature survived? Or… Weapons raised, the Fentons went down the slope to meet it.

It was Phantom. Covered in splatters of green, scratched and bruised, white hair smudged grey with soot, but intact. In his arms he carried a small, limp figure. For one heart-stopping moment Maddie thought he held a human child. Then the smoke cleared and she caught sight of the white hair and translucent, greenish skin. It was the ghost girl.

The Fentons looked at each other, then lowered their guns.

Phantom hadn't noticed them. His jaw clenched, breath hissing through his teeth, eyes fixed on the ground. Steam rose in greenish plumes from the body of the ghost in his arms. He kept walking, stiff-legged, like someone whose knees would buckle if he paused.

Jack holstered his gun and stepped forward, reaching out a hand toward Phantom. Phantom's eyes widened and he jerked back.

"Don't-touch her!" the movement overbalanced him and he fell back, landing in a heap on the broken stone and ashes. The ghost girl's body warped and swayed. He clutched her tight. "Any warmth'll finish her," he rasped.

The ghost girl was just barely clinging to corporeality, Maddie realized. Her skin flickered in and out of visibility, exposing a simmering mass of dark green, lit deep within by a fitful core, with vague, dissolving shapes of… bones? How strange. Ectoplasm dripped from the girl's hair and fingertips… no, her _hair and fingertips_ dripped, slowly losing shape and substance. Her breath clouded in puffs of white steam.

They hovered, unsure what to do, unwilling to leave the two wounded ghosts.

"The beast is dead?" Jack asked.

Phantom blinked at him, frowning, as if he'd forgotten the beast altogether. Then he nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I checked. The core's fried."

Phantom's aura brightened and he squeezed the girl closer to his chest. He was cooling her down, Maddie realized, pushing his own core close to hers and trying to share its icy energy. His own skin flickered; there wasn't much left to give.

"You saved a lot of people today, Phantom," she said softly. She touched Jack's arm. They exchanged glances. Maybe there was something they could do. They were ghost experts, weren't they?

He shook his head. "She did. It _had_ me. When the wail didn't work it could've taken me out in a second. That would've been it, for all of us. But she came back. And-" He took a deep, shuddering breath. "She _knew_ she wasn't strong enough. But she came back."

Maddie knelt, pulling a water bottle out of the bag slung over her shoulder. She opened it and poured it over the girl's body. The girl moaned, but the steam escaping her body lessened, just a little.

Phantom looked up at Maddie. He looked startlingly young, bright green eyes glowing out of a soot-stained face. "Do you think you can help her?"

"We'll give it our best shot," Jack said. He rummaged in his own bag and brought out a second water bottle, handing it to Maddie. "You think you can bring her up to our RV? It's not far."

Phantom's expression steeled. "Yeah. I'll do it."

* * *

Maddie cranked up the air conditioning as Jack screeched out of the half-ruined parking lot and zoomed toward Fenton Works. Sure-footed despite the swerving from years of practice, Maddie moved to the back to check on their strange passengers.

They sat strapped in together; the girl flickered in and out of visibility, soft and shapeless. Phantom looked even worse up close in the bright GAV interior lights. Sweat rolled down his neck in a steady stream. Dark green circles ringed his eyes. On one leg the jumpsuit was torn open, a nasty gash oozing dark green. There were rips and cuts littering his arms and torso. Maddie winced in sympathy. They'd have to help him too, or he might destabilize himself. She hung onto a handle as Jack made a turn and reached into a compartment, producing another bottle of water. Screwing off the lid, she handed it to Phantom.

"Hydrate," she instructed.

The ghost boy blinked at her. "Me?"

"Yes, you." Maddie reached out to touch him, then remembered her own body heat and thought better of it. "If you don't care for yourself, remember you're the only thing keeping your friend intact. If you exhaust your own resources before we can find a way to keep her stable, she'll be in trouble."

The ghost boy took it from her with one hand, leaving the other tucked securely around the ghost in his lap. Raising it to his lips, he gulped it down. His arm shook.

Maddie went back up to the front. She touched Jack's arm. "You'd better hurry."

* * *

 _tbc..._

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hi everyone! Welcome to WLGAMO, which doesn't abbreviate nearly as elegantly as its cousin, SoaD. This is a story I wrote last year for **cosplayer-bara** as part of **thickerthanectoplasm** 's Christmas Truce gift exchange on Tumblr (which is an awesome tradition, btw!).

It's a bit different stylistically from a lot of my other works - trying to tell a big plot in a short (under 10k) span of words. Still, I rather liked the result and I wanted to share it here on FFn as well. It's a very quick story, only six short chapters, and already complete, so it will be posted fairly rapidy. I hope you enjoy it!

-Hj


	2. Ups and Downs

_The size. The sheer, mind-boggling size of it. That's what struck Maddie as she stood knee-deep in rubble with an ectoplasmic missile launcher balanced on one shoulder. Once as a child her grandfather had taken her to an air show, in an open field where a blimp had filled up the sky, a scant thirty feet off the ground. She remembered vast, curving grey fabric, stretching past her line of sight. A shadow that ate up the ground._

 _This creature could have crushed that blimp under a single clawed limb. Its green surface rippled with a thick sea of tentacles. It swung its body and a dozen skyscrapers toppled. It roared and sour purple smoke set every green thing it touched ablaze._

 _The blimp had made Maddie feel small. Here, as an adult, heavily armed and with decades od ghost hunting under her belt, she felt microscopic. Like an ant that had wandered under some giant's descending foot. Cold sweat trickled down her neck and into her jumpsuit. Her hands trembled as she squeezed the missile launcher's grip. Its lightweight titanium tubing felt oddly flimsy on her shoulder._

 _What was a missile against… that?_

 _Another skyscraper crumpled. Black smoke billowed up to darken the sky._

 _Two tiny figures caught her eye, barely more than flashes of light in the distance. They soared around the thing's massive head, twin comets of red and green, ectoblasts flashing out in staccato bursts._

 _The red hunter. The ghost boy. That close, it must blot out the whole sky for them. Nothing but a seething sea of grasping tendrils and glaring scarlet eyes. They swooped in close together, concentrating fire on a single eye until it burst. A river of ectoplasm erupted from the smoking red socket and plunged toward the ground below. The thing bellowed, setting the ground vibrating._

 _Maddie took a deep breath, steadied the missile launcher, and gazed through the scope. If they could face it, so could she. She pulled the trigger._

* * *

The front door wouldn't open fast enough. Maddie fumbled with the keys, her attention on the coldness at her elbow where Phantom stood with his fragile cargo. Ectoplasm dripped down the ghost girl's head, a soft, steady _plip, plip_ , _plip_. Worry squirmed through Maddie's mind; they'd offered to help, but could they? Her mind flitted from one theory to another, turning over ideas and rejecting them faster than she could turn the key. They needed a focal generator, an enhancer… _something_.

Phantom's leaned into the doorframe. He pressed his forehead against it. Sweat rolled down the chipped white paint, staining it green. Maddie spared him a worried glance, then pushed the door open.

Jack hovered, a big, warm orange presence behind them both. "I could…" he offered, making a movement toward the ghosts.

Phantom straightened and hitched the girl higher. "Too hot, remember?"

He threaded through the living room furniture led by some sixth sense, as if he'd walked through it a thousand times before. The ghost's eyes stayed fixed solely on the girl he carried. Clumps of ectoplasm fizzled into the carpet.

"Come on, stay with me," he muttered.

"Danny?" A small, disembodied voice. Vague blue-white eyes blinked in a formless face. Maddie's brow creased with worry. That meant… the ghost's consciousness was no longer tied to her ectoplasmic body. Not good.

Phantom smiled. "Hey cuz. I've got you."

The eyes widened and a shapeless arm jerked, sending a glob of ectoplasm splatting across the kitchen floor. "I can't feel my arms—I — Danny — _help —_ "

"Just hang on, we're almost there."

Jack shoved aside the kitchen table and chairs with one sweep of his arm. Maddie dashed ahead, down the stairs and into the lab.

The cavernous basement picked up her running footsteps and flung them back at her. Maddie strode over to the worktable and flung open the cabinets, scanning the half-organized piles of equipment and inventions. There had to be _something_ they could use to at least stabilize the ghost girl and give them time to think. She pushed aside piles of weapons, suddenly impatient with the overwhelming destructiveness of them all. Extractors, blasters, atomizers—they'd dedicated their work to _destroying_ ghosts, not helping them. What could they do?

"Maddie." The quiet, carefully calm way Jack said it made Maddie's pulse skip. Maddie looked toward the stairs. Ectoplasm dripped off the bottom step. Something bright flickered just out of sight. She ran.

* * *

Phantom sat halfway down the stairs. The steps below him were a flood of liquid green. Cupped in his hands, a ball of blue-white light crackled, flashing like caged lightning. Phantom had gone dead white, eyes wide and staring, pupils bare pinpricks in a wash of electric green. They flickered in time with the orb.

Maddie sucked in a sharp breath. That was… it had to be the ghost girl's core. She'd dissolved. Nothing else was left. Maddie exchanged glances with Jack, who stood just below Phantom with ectoplasm pooling around his boots. The core's frantic lights etched crazy shadows into his stubbled face.

Something sizzled. The stench of burning ectoplasm filled the stairway. Maddie saw the core eroding Phantom's gloves, slowly eating into his fingers. Drawn in by the ectoplasm, trying to assimilate it… that wouldn't happen, Maddie realized with growing apart. It would just tear the ghost boy apart. They'd lose them both.

"Phantom! You have to let go."

Phantom shook his head once, violently. The effort of containing the core's energy—energy that should have dissipated instantaneously—made the cords stand out on his neck. Sweat beaded on his face. It drifted free in shimmering droplets, evaporating against his aura. Steam hissed up from his back.

Maddie reached for the ghost, then drew back as electricity knifed out of the core toward her hand. "You won't save her. It's just taking you with it!"

He bared his teeth. Electricity arced across them. "No."

Jack crouched so that he was eye-level with the ghost boy. "You can't hold her, son," he said with a gentleness that surprised Maddie. "Let her go."

Phantom's shoulders shook, and his head bowed.

 _Hold._ Maddie's brain clicked. Hold. That could… "Wait—just one minute more, Phantom, don't move!" Maddie flew down to the lab, nearly slipping in the ectoplasm.

Yanking out a crate from under the workbench, she snatched up a ray gun— a recent invention, shelved because the results had been so inconsistent. She checked the battery and flicked off the safety. The thing started up with a reluctant whirr. It had a thirty percent success rate. She'd have to bet on those odds.

Dashing back, Maddie trained it on Phantom.

Jack turned, startled. "Mads!"

"Trust me." She fired.

* * *

 _tbc..._

* * *

 **A/N:**

Dun dun _dunnn!_ *tiny sloth pose*

Super short chapter, but really, could I end it anywhere else?

Thanks for the reviews, folks! I don't have time to get back to every one of you, but just know that they're read and loved! (and incidentally **evilllive269** get some sleep, geez louise hon)

Until next time,

-Hj


	3. Puppydog Tails

_Danny dropped to his knees, spent, his throat raw from the supernatural force of his ghostly wail. With a groan like a falling tree, the creature's forelimb separated from its body and crashed over three streets, crushing cars and buildings and splintering roads. Ectoplasm spewed from the severed stump like a broken dam._

 _Cold droplets fell into his hair as he struggled to raise his head. He felt completely and utterly drained - like he'd been hollowed out and scraped clean. White rings flickered around his waist, lingered, and disappeared. Still ghost. That was something. He sat back on his heels and gazed up at the thing that still blotted out the sky._

 _When it fell, he'd hammer it with everything he had left. Without Valerie to tag-team, he just had to hope it wouldn't snag him. Hope that if it did, there were enough ghost hunters left uninjured to take down whatever he couldn't. It wasn't much of a plan. Heck, it wasn't a plan, it was just plain desperation. But he had to try._

 _It swayed, its aura an agitated storm of red. The tentacles fluttered like a forest in a hurricane. The noise from deep inside its throat pitched up to an earsplitting keen. Danny wondered if it was sentient enough to feel pain. He decided he didn't care._

 _Suddenly the shower of ectoplasm stopped. Danny glanced up, breath catching in his throat. Was it finally dying? The stump contracted, warped, stretched, then burst into a cluster of tentacles, glowing a bright, hideous red. The tentacles twisted around each other, growing, extending, rushing toward the earth and fusing together until an entirely new limb stood where the other one had fallen._

 _Danny's mouth dropped open in shock. "You've got to be kidding me."_

 _The limb raised itself high in the air. Its weird alien toes, two in front, three in back, spread wide and came whistling down, right for Danny. He couldn't move. He'd never win this battle, anyway. At least Mom and Dad were safe, he thought, feeling tired. Too bad he never had a chance to tell them who he was. He shut his eyes._

 _Time seemed to stop. An icy hand closed over Danny's wrist, tingling intangibility ran through him - he felt the phantom impact, the shudder of the concrete as it cracked - sensory after-images. Then he was gone._

* * *

Maddie fired the weapon at Phantom from point-blank range. Time seemed to stop. A bluish gel shot out and wrapped around the ghost, solidifying instantly, dampening his aura, freezing him in place. Bright green ectoplasm went grey. The raw core in Phantom's hands ebbed to a subdued blue, like a dying coal.

"Hold gel," Jack said, and his face broke out in a smile. "Good thinking Mads."

She set the gun down with shaking hands. Luckily it had worked as it should, containing and slowing their ectosignatures—at least until the gel dissolved. "That buys us maybe ten minutes. We have to work fast." She hurried downstairs.

Jack nodded and scooped up the immobile ghost, gel and all, bringing him down to the lab in three strides. "We need a fluid containment matrix with a stable base current, don't you think, Mads?"

He set the ghost on a chair next to the lab table. The greyed-out tones were beginning to fade back in, blue gel hissing softly as it evaporated. To Maddie it sounded like a burning fuse.

"On it." Maddie gutted the Fenton Weasel as she spoke, tearing out the parts she needed. "There's a drum of de-natured ectoplasm in the back cabinet. We just need a container big enough… a glass one. We need a good view to monitor any changes."

"No time." He lifted the fifty-gallon drum with a grunt and settled it next to Phantom. Grabbing a crowbar, Jack pried off the lid. "Just hook it right up to this thing, it'll do fine."

Maddie twisted a set of wires together, snipped another, then dragged the whole tangled mess next to the tank. She ran the wires into the ectoplasmic fluid and switched on the Weasel. The fluid in the drum bubbled and began to glow brightly.

The bluish glow faded from Phantom. A few warning crackles ran over his body.

"Here we go," Jack said grimly. He moved behind Phantom and stood with his hands poised to catch the ghost if he fell.

The last of the gell evaporated with a hiss. Phantom started, looking around wildly. "What?" He hissed and doubled over, clutching the core between his hands.

"Into the ectoplasm, quick!"

The ghost boy shuddered and didn't answer. With the electrical havoc the second core was wreaking on his body, he could no longer respond, let alone move.

Jack grabbed Phantom's wrists, flinching at the shock that jumped up his arms, then slowly and firmly moved Phantom's hands over the open drum and turned them palm down. The instant the core touched the ectoplasm, it leapt from the ghost's grip, crackled across the surface, and sank.

Maddie held her breath; no one moved. Ectoplasm dripped from Phantom's burned hands and made ripples on the surface. The core became a pulsing, green-white glow in the heart of the canister.

"She looks… stable," Jack said, and his face split into a grin. His arm was still around Phantom and he jostled the teenaged ghost good-naturedly. "That's about as close as you can cut it, eh, Phantom?"

The boy's face broke into a slow, careful smile. "She's…"

"We can take things from here," Mads said gently. Then she smiled, too.

Phantom nodded. His face scrunched up and he sobbed, still smiling.

Jack patted his back. "You did good, kiddo."

* * *

"Mom, Dad?"

Maddie glanced up from her work, warm relief breaking over her face in a smile. Her daughter stood at the bottom of the stairs, red hair tousled, sooty and with a rip in her blouse, but unharmed. The ghost shield that city hall had bought for the hospital really paid off.

Jazz stepped into the lab. Keys jingled in her hands. "I'm glad you're okay! They only just opened up the roads or I would've—"

She stopped short, her eyes landing on Phantom, who sat at his post next to the tank of ectoplasm. Her mouth fell open.

"Jazz honey, don't be afraid," Maddie said quickly. "He's…"

"One of the good guys," the ghost supplied with a crooked smile. "That's the bright side of fighting off something bigger than a blimp. Good PR."

"Oh," she said faintly. "Okay. Are you…"

Phantom shrugged. "Danielle's worse."

Her eyes followed his to the drum of ectoplasm and she paled. "Oh yeah, your…"

"Yeah. It got bad, but they're helping her. How's..."

"Alive. All of them."

He gave her another tired smile. "Good."

Maddie glanced from her daughter to the ghost, puzzled by this half-spoken conversation. "Do you two know each other?"

Jazz and Phantom both flushed , finding a sudden interest in opposite corners of the lab's ceiling. Phantom made a vague explanatory wave of his hand. "Uh… I rescued her from a ghost once?"

Maddie sighed. So this was where all of Jazz's pro-ghost notions were coming from. ...though in the end she'd had a point, or else they wouldn't be here now. "Did Danny stay at the hospital?"

Jazz's eyes went to Phantom. "Oh! Yeah. He's with Tucker. You know how Tuck gets freaked out by hospitals. Sam's there too, and Valerie, one of Danny's friends. They're all hurt, but they'll be okay."

"I should've stopped that guy before he ever touched the bazooka," Phantom growled. Inhuman lights flickered angry and green at the back of his eyes. "This got way out of control."

"You couldn't have predicted what would happen," Jazz pocketed her keys and came to peer into the canister. The glowing liquid painted waves of green on her face. "No one could."

The ghost boy fiddled with a half-empty water bottle, shoulders hunching. "People died."

"A lot more would have died if you hadn't stopped it." She crossed her arms. "Mom, back me up here."

Maddie set aside her papers and gave Jazz a quick hug. "She's right, Phantom. The entire city owes you one."

"I guess so."

Jazz snorted. "I know so." To Maddie's surprise, Jazz kissed the ghost lightly on the head. "And my brother's safe. That means a lot."

* * *

"You okay?" Maddie, measuring drops of ectoplasm into test tubes across the lab, pretended not to hear Jazz speaking to Phantom in an undertone.

"Yeah."

"For real, or are you just saying that?" A pause. "Danny…"

It was odd that Jazz would use the ghost's first name, but it seemed to have the desired effect. Maddie heard Phantom sigh.

"Some broken bones," he admitted. "My side feels like it's gonna cave in. There's the burns, and I think this breaks the record for straight-out tiredness. But nothing fatally bad. Ghosts are pretty durable."

Maddie stilled, pipette poised in midair. That… didn't make sense. Ghosts didn't have bones. Or need sleep. Or use words like fatal.

Jazz didn't seem to notice the oddity. "Tell me that when I'm not watching one being reconstructed from scratch."

"She'll be fine. They promised."

"I hope so." A pause. Both of them gazed down into the tank. Jazz's eyes flicked back to Phantom, worry creasing her face. "Shouldn't you, you know, go rest?"

"I'm not going anywhere until I know she'll be okay. And before you say it, I won't tell them. Not yet. They've gotta focus on her." He bowed his head and raked his hands through his hair. "Besides, if I sleep now, I'm going to be out for a while. A long while. A year sounds good."

"You're going to pass out right in front of them and it'll happen anyway." Jazz used that resigned, know-it-all tone she usually reserved for Danny when he was downing cheese whiz or some other ungodly junk food.

Phantom shook his head. "I won't. I'll crash later. I'm staying."

* * *

 _tbc..._

* * *

A/N: Too tired for chatter but here 'tis. Thanks for the reviews, everyone!

Thanks to **Dizappearingirl** for some quick edits to the first part! If you haven't read her DP fics you should, she's awesome! -Hj

 **ArtfulDodger** \- Heh, good for you - but this is the new and improved version! :P

 **Kitsu Maxwell** \- Congratulations! I hope it went well and that everyone is healthy and happy. :D


	4. Frogs and Snails

_Valerie bent and twisted, corkscrewing her jetsled around a cluster of grasping tentacles as they whipped out to grab her. She zoomed low and dropped a thermal grenade at the huge curving saucer of the beast's nearest eye. It detonated. The constant roar the thing made spiked in a shrill keen of pain. She sailed out of range in a smooth arc and looked back to survey the damage - a bright red ray caught her in the stomach and knocked her off her board._

 _It felt like getting whacked right in the middle by a two by four. All the breath went out of her body. She couldn't move, couldn't react, could only fall toward the city far below._

 _Dammit, dammit - Valerie willed her limbs to tighten, a new ectogun materializing in her hands. She fired two shots at the smaller eye that had tagged her, then twisted and tried to get her feet under her— only to see her board caught by the tentacles as it circled around. She watched it break in half with a morbid sort of annoyance - autopilot hadn't been smart enough to steer clear. She couldn't regenerate that board for an hour after it was destroyed. Which left her falling, injured and helpless. What a lame way to go. Unless somebody felt like showing up to catch her…_

 _Right on cue, cold arms closed around her arms and chest, snatching her out of freefall and away from the wall of tentacles with whiplash-inducing speed. Only he didn't stop just out of range. He kept going, toward the huge green dome where the surviving population of Amity Park waited in safety._

 _Valerie writhed, trying to free her pinned arms. "Phantom— get off me— I can still fight— let go!"_

" _Shut up," he panted,dipping down and landing in a dark alley just a few feet from the bright green ghost shield._

 _He set her down, glanced at her waist, paled. "Oh, man." He looked around the empty alley, frantic, then — "Dangit. Shut your eyes."_

" _Why would I—" A bright white flash. She shielded her eyes._

 _And suddenly Danny Fenton stood over her instead._

" _Danny? Where'd you come from?" she said stupidly, unable to grasp the obvious, glaring answer._

" _Flight school," he said, tearing off his shirt and ripping it in half. "They want your license back."_

 _She barely registered what he said - Valerie found herself transfixed by Danny's naked torso - the pale skin of his skinny chest and stomach, streaked with burns and ugly red-purple bruises. Sucker marks from the tentacles spiraled up his arms. Tentacles that had grabbed Phantom before she'd blasted them to pieces—_

 _Valerie felt faint. "Danny?"_

" _Listen Val, we don't have time." He pressed the T-shirt into her side—Valerie winced and pulled away, suddenly aware of a deep, sickening pain just under her ribs. He took her hand and pressed it on top of the fabric. It felt warm and gooey. She glanced down and saw the white cloth turning red. That was her blood, she realized queasily. Maybe she wasn't just faint from surprise._

" _It got a direct hit, pierced right through your armor." Danny's hand on top of hers was shaking; he still hadn't caught his breath. "That's—that's really bad. Keep pressure on it. You can stand, so I guess you can walk. I need to you to get yourself to the hospital. Think you can do that?"_

" _Danny, I don't understand— Who...who are you? What are you?"_

" _Sorry, but I wasn't kidding about the no time thing." He took her by the arm and half dragged, half carried her toward the bright green sheet of energy that bisected the alley. "Just… go through the shield and find somebody. Ask them to drive you there. Or call 911, if that's even working today."_

 _Valerie dug in her heels, shaking her head. This had all happened way too fast. Danny? Danny was— "No, I am not just leaving. You don't get to pull this on me and walk away!"_

 _He arched an eyebrow and jutted a thumb upwards. "Technically I'm gonna fly away—"_

 _She was so not in the mood for stupid jokes. "Why show me now?"_

 _A dumb mischievous grin that belonged on Phantom's face, not Danny's. "Because I knew it would shut you up long enough to listen." An explosion rocked the ground and he glanced up at the sky, worry creasing his brow. "My parents can't hold that thing off on their own. I've got to get back. You can make it."_

 _A few stumbling steps, a tingling coolness washed over her, and then she was on the other side, staring back at Danny through a wash of electric green. He smiled as if he hadn't just turned her world inside out. "Damnit, Danny! I'm going to kill you for this."_

 _The smile turned into a grin. "Good to know we have a stable relationship!" Another bright flash and he - Danny Phantom - sprang into the air and shot off toward the beast, alone._

* * *

Maddie peered down into the canister, frowning over her clipboard. The core had gathered a thick, protective layer of dense ectoplasm around itself, but hours had passed and it had progressed no further. It swirled around the drum with a faint, formless tail trailing behind it like a glowing tadpole. Every now and then a few darker would wander out, as if to form an arm or a leg, but they lost shape and retreated.

"This isn't right," she muttered.

"What? Is she okay?" Phantom appeared next to her in a flash, hands on the rim of the canister.

Maddie glanced at him, startled, then over at Jack—he seemed better at handling the ghost boy's odd personality, but Jack was neck deep in printouts, frowning in that preoccupied way that she knew only offers of chocolate would break through.

"She's stabilized," Maddie said, setting down the clipboard. She crouched and checked the battery on the repurposed Fenton Weasel. "That's a good thing. But that's far as she's developed, which… isn't so good." Rocking back on her heels, she tapped the side of the barrel, pursing her lips. It just didn't add up, and that frustrated her. "Ectosignatures are usually so resilient—the reformation of her body around the core should have kicked in automatically as soon as she had enough ectoplasm available. This…" she stood up and gestured at the tadpole-like thing in the tank, "...this proto-form wouldn't be able to maintain itself outside the confines of this container."

The ghost boy frowned, processing this. "All she needs is time, right? And more ectoplasm. We could get her more, easy. That's all she needs, right?"

Maddie glanced around again hoping for Jack — or even Jazz — but she was on her own. She sighed and tried to speak gently. Scientists weren't particularly well-versed in breaking bad news. "It… it's possible that her ectosignature was damaged during the transfer. If crucial patterns in the core's electrical matrix dissipated while it was exposed, it might…" she hesitated again, but there was no easy way to put it. "...not be possible for her to come back. Not all the way."

Phantom's hands clenched on the canister's rim, fingertips just touching the ectoplasm. He shook his head. "No."

The core swam up, as if responding to his distress, and brushed against his fingertips.

"I'm sorry, Phantom, but it's a possibility you'll have to face. She may not even—" Maddie cut off, grasping Phantom's shoulder.

Out of the core's mass sprang a hand—almost perfect at the fingertips, translucent, with faint traces of bones underneath, fingertips just brushing Phantom's. It stayed there for the barest of moments, then crumpled and dissolved. The core resumed its restless swimming.

Maddie and Phantom looked at each other, eyes wide.

"What was that?" he whispered.

"I was going to ask you the same question."

"Me?" he squeaked. "I barely passed high school science. What do I know?"

"You know more about this ghost than any of us. Where she came from, what her nature is like… you can't deny the two of you are somehow related, not with those matching outfits of yours."

Phantom huffed and dropped on a stool, picking at his tattered gloves. "We are… different from other ghosts," the ghost said slowly, as if picking his words out of a minefield. "Maybe more different than I thought. Maybe… maybe she _is_ missing something, but it's not her ectosignature."

Maddie remembered his careful hesitation during the conversation with Jazz; he was hiding something again. She wanted to press him, demand a direct answer, but that might just make him shy away from it again-and this information might be crucial. Instead she waited.

He stared down at his gloves in silence, thinking, then sucked in a quick intake of breath. "Wait—" Jumping off the stool, Phantom pulled off the remains of his glove and fumbled at his sleeve, rolling it up with slow, clumsy fingers. Maddie cringed at the burns on his exposed hand.

"There was blood on my gloves—uh, ectoplasm," he said. "I bet she reacted to it—but it was dried stuff, and maybe that wasn't strong enough. Maybe I have what she doesn't. If you just look at it, you could figure it out."

Maddie nodded, opening a drawer and pulling out a package of syringes. "Let's do it."

* * *

She looked up from the microscope screen at Phantom's anxious face.

"Does it help?" he asked.

"What… what _are_ you?" Maddie pushed her chair back and gestured for Jack to have a look. He peered at the closeup of Phantom's ectoplasm—ectoplasmic blood, really—and let out a low whistle. Phantom's eyes dropped to the floor, and he fidgeted with the bandage on his arm.

"There are vestigial cell structures here," Jack said, excitement rising through his tone. "Strands of DNA. This almost looks human."

The ghost boy flinched. "Yeah. That'd be the, uh, human part of us."

"Part?" Maddie echoed. A ghost-human hybrid? The idea would've struck her as ridiculous if she hadn't just seen the evidence with her eyes. Ectoplasm and blood didn't mix. They involved chemicals and structures totally alien to each other. For them to fuse into a functioning, stable bioelectric entity… the chances were one in a million. In a hundred thousand millions, maybe. And _two_ of them? At _least_? The implications made her dizzy.

"How human are you?" Jack asked, eyes sparkling with interest. He'd realized it too. This was big.

Phantom leapt out of his seat, green eyes flashing. "Does it matter? You _said_ you'd help her!"

Maddie folded her arms and pushed back from the microscope. "Calm down, Phantom. No one said we wouldn't. We need to know what we're dealing with here."

"Alright. Sorry—I'm..." He ran a hand across his face and sighed, resuming his seat. "I'm half, about half, we think. She's maybe a little less. But our makeup's going to be really similar, since— since she was made from me." He leveled a glare at each of them in turn, daring them to make something of it.

Jack scratched his chin, eyeing him doubtfully. "You mean like… your daughter?"

"What?" Phantom's cheeks flushed vivid green. "Um, no. Clone. Some lunatic made her in a lab—he stole my DNA and based her off that. Blood DNA. Not, uh. She's a _clone_."

It was adorable how flustered he'd suddenly become—it reminded Maddie uncannily of Danny. She hid a smirk behind a sheaf of papers, tapping them against her chin in mock thoughtfulness. "A female, younger clone? Sounds suspicious. Human DNA _would_ allow for zygotic procreation. We don't know your real age, and besides ghost children might develop at an accelerated rate."

Jack caught her drift and winked over Phantom's head. He assumed a stern expression. "Something you're not telling us, kid? Been getting frisky in your off time?"

The blush reached the roots of the ghost boy's hair. "No! And _ew_ , and—" Phantom glanced from one to the other. "You're teasing me." He groaned and flung his head onto his arms on the table. "I'm too tired for this crap."

Maddie glanced at Jack, then touched Phantom on the arm. He seemed so oddly solid for a ghost, his cool arm real and solid under the jumpsuit. Now they knew why. "You should get some rest. You're the only one who hasn't slept."

Phantom shut his eyes and pressed his forehead into the cool stainless steel. "Ghosts don't need sleep."

She shook her head at the stubbornness in his voice. "Hybrids do, apparently."

"Danielle first."

Jack moved over to peer through the microscope again. "This 'lunatic' who created her. Did he make you, too?"

"Me? Nah, I was an accident." Jack opened his mouth and Phantom pointed a finger in his direction without raising his head. "Don't even start—the _other_ kind of accident. Lab explosion. Kinda. The point is that I'm the original. This guy wanted me, 2.0. A version of me that he could control." He tipped his head sideways to smile at the little shape swimming in the canister. "That didn't work out so well for him."

"Made of better stuff, huh."

Maddie glanced at Jack, a little surprised at the warm approval in his voice, though she did agree with him. He'd warmed up to the ghost boy with surprising quickness. Or perhaps not so surprising, considering all Phantom had done today.

"Dani's, well, _herself_. But he screwed up something—took shortcuts, did something to make them weaker. There were other clones, but they… well, you saw."

Maddie and Jack looked in grim silence at the ectoplasm-stained stairs.

"That fills in the puzzle some," Maddie said at last. "The ectoplasm is stabilizing her core, but it's not enough. Ectoplasm doesn't have the same structural density that human bodies do. It can't recreate all that cell matter on its own."

"I could give her my blood," Phantom said, moving as if to stand up.

"Not an option," Jack shook his head, guiding the boy back into his seat with one hand. His knees buckled even under the gentle pressure. "You're already running on fumes, kiddo."

"Jack's right," Maddie agreed. "Besides, the foreign DNA might do more harm than good." Tapping her pen on side of the microscope, she ran her teeth over her tongue, thinking. "What we need is something… neutral, genetically speaking. A base protein that's substantial enough to provide the proper building blocks. That would be a start."

Jack sprang up. "Mads, you're brilliant! Be right back!"

* * *

 _tbc..._

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hi guys! Here's the latest chapter! We're halfway through and moving right along... just to be clear, the flashback bits at the beginning aren't necessarily in chronological order. Thank you so much for your reviews! I hope you enjoy the rest of this little fic. :)

-Hj


	5. Sugar and Spice

_The beast's clawed foot came smashing down on Danny. He heard splintering concrete, groaning metal as undeground pipes split, the hiss of a spewing fire hydrant-all distant, through an icy veil of intangibility. The hand on his wrist pulled, and found himself soaring up, away, toward the four-story mall that had a few parts left standing. The icy grip let go, and Danny landed in a heap on a tilting rooftop. He blinked up at the sky, dazed. He… didn't die?_

 _Danielle's face suddenly filled his sight, spiky white hair framing a face with huge blue eyes and a whole lot of worry. "Are you nuts? That thing almost squashed you! You don't have time to take a nap!"_

 _Danny grinned at her in a sudden, hysterical euphoria. "Hey, I didn't die!"_

" _Congratulations. You're welcome, by the way."_

" _Thanks, seriously." Danny sat up and touched his ribs gingerly; he'd taken a hit just before he'd tried the ghostly wail, and it felt like a slow-burning fire eating into his ribs. Something was probably broken. He'd worry about it later. "Dani, you can't be here. You know that."_

 _He'd made her promise to lay low if there was any serious trouble in Amity Park. They'd gotten her instability under control with a combination of Fenton inventions and rest, but she had to take it easy or she'd end up like the other clones._

" _Weird, because I am." She reached into a pouch slung around her waist and pulled out a handful of glowing green cubes. "Here, eat it." They felt like cool, gooey marbles when she shoved them into his mouth. "It's better if you don't chew them."_

 _Danny swallowed, then gagged on the taste. It tasted vile, like sweet and low mixed with battery acid. As soon as it hit his stomach, new energy zinged through his core. "Woah. What is this stuff? How did you get it? What are you doing here? Dani—"_

" _Vlad's halfa espresso, you don't wanna know, saving your butt." She offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. "Come on cuz, let's save the world."_

 _Gritting his teeth, he stood and took a few limping steps to the edge of the roof. The monster was plowing through an apartment building, tentacles snatching at the fluttering debris that flew out of the shattered homes. Couches, beds, dressers. No people, he hoped._

 _Dani floated up beside him. "Nasty," she commented, surveying the monster with her arms crossed. That had to be the understatement of the century. "What's the plan, hero man?"_

 _The new energy from whatever Dani had given him left a strange ringing in his ears. It made his senses feel razor sharp, giving hyperdefinition to the crumbling buildings, the red-stained clouds, the great rippling mass of tentacles that was its body, the huge scaly tendons of its legs. He gulped. "Taking it down with the Wail was my plan."_

" _Oh. Plan B?"_

" _Uh… working on it." Danny's eyes darted over the wreckage, as it it would somehow give him the answer. Ectoplasmic attacks were out. The beast absorbed little blasts, and big ones just weren't big enough. "Maybe I can heat it up. Kill it with fire." Ghosts had a low tolerance for extreme heat._

" _For that we'd need an anti-aircraft missile, or a bomb, or… something!" Dani threw her hands up in the air. "Why can't Amity Park have, like, a national weapons stash or something?"_

 _Danny's eyes fell on the Nasty Burger, and he swallowed hard, hit by a sudden memory-a billowing cloud of fire, a hollowed-out crater, the reek of burning flesh and plastic. Amity Park did have one thing that was very, very explosive, and it stood three blocks away from the rampaging monster. "I think there's a way."_

" _Then go for it." Dani raised her fists, which began to glow with vivid, crackling ectoplasm. "I'll keep this thing busy."_

 _Danny didn't like it, but he didn't have a choice. Mom and Dad were out of the fight - he'd made sure they got out safe - and Valerie might not even be alive… he had to count on Dani. "Okay. But… don't get yourself hurt." He put his hands on her shoulders briefly, ensuring she looked him in the eye and got what he was saying. "I just need a distraction, okay? A light show. Keep it occupied. Keep it from going further into the city. But don't try to attack it directly. And don't let it catch you. And don't—"_

 _She laughed and shrugged out of his grip. "Relax, Danny, I've got it. Do your thing." Without waiting for a response, she zipped off toward the beast's head and its hundreds of eyes, gathering energy into her palms as she went. Danny pushed back a sudden sense of dread; she'd be fine. He'd just have to hurry._

 _He dove through concrete and a grease-crusted ceiling into the kitchen of the Nasty Burger. A huge tank of the chemical concoction they liked to call hot sauce sat at the rear of the kitchen, far away from the stoves, plastered with red and yellow warning labels. Danny grabbed it and, gritting his teeth, wrenched it free from the bolts on the floor. He ignored the answering flare of pain from his side. Turning the thing intangible, he carried it up and back to the monster._

 _The tank was huge, and-he knew from experience- would cause a horrific explosion given enough pressure and the right spark. Danny came as close to the reaching tentacles as he dared, then flung the tank toward the beast's head. The tank sailed true, right into the thing's huge open maw._

 _Perfect. Danny flicked off a mock salute, then sped off to where Dani was making a dazzling network of ectoblasts before the beast's eyes. "I know you're having a blast, but it's time to go!"_

 _With one arm he grabbed his cousin, with the other he reached back and fired off a blast at the canister. It struck just before the canister vanished into the beast's tunnel of a throat. Danny flung up a shield and curled himself around Dani. A huge bang rang out like a gunshot. The world turned white. Hot. Hotter than the inside of the sun, blistering his back, setting his feet on fire and flinging them hard into the earth. Danny heard Danielle shriek and fingernails dug into his arm. The shield bounced like a tennis ball, shattered - then - black._

* * *

Maddie and Phantom watched as Jack bounced up the stairs and out of sight. Shortly afterward they heard a series of terrific crashes and banging in the kitchen.

Phantom looked quizzically at Maddie. "What's genius?"

She shrugged and sat back, a small smile on her face. She didn't have a clue, but experience told her that Jack's flashes of brilliance were always worth the wait. "Patience, Phantom. My husband knows what he's doing."

Five minutes later Jack reappeared, his arms full of small, brightly colored cardboard boxes. "I knew I had a bunch of these stashed somewhere!"

The ghost walked over and picked one up. "Is this… jello mix?"

"Sure is!" Jack tore open a box and ripped the top off the paper packet, pouring a little pile of the sugary green granules into a petri dish. He snatched up a test tube—one of the ectoplasmic samples they'd salvaged from the stairs—and poured it onto the jello. The ectoplasm fizzled.

"Jello's made out of gelatin. That's animal gristle— connective tissue boiled till it dissolves."

"Really?" Phantom picked up the abandoned box and squinted at the ingredients list. "Gross."

"You bet! But those proteins will help your clone rebuild her body right from scratch."

"Danielle. Her name's Danielle."

"I see where you're going with this," Maddie said, putting on her goggles and peering at the mixture closely. There was _some_ kind of chemical reaction going on. "Sugar is a super simple, easy-to-process energy source for human cells. With the proteins from gelatin to provide basic building blocks of connective tissue and energy in the form of sugar, it just might jumpstart the fragments of her remaining cells into production."

"Right. We can start with the DNA from the stair samples so those cells have information to build on. Together, I betcha that—aha!" He pointed at the petri dish, a grin spreading across his face. "Look at that!" The ectoplasm in the dish had condensed into a ragged lump of darker green. As they watched it flickered with white energy, then changed to a dirty green-brown. Reddish liquid oozed out of the thicker mass.

"That's… blood," Phantom said. He swallowed, going white. "That's, like, a _piece_ of her."

"That's good," Maddie said quickly. "We can isolate the DNA much easier from this than ectoplasm." They had DNA analysis equipment somewhere in the shed from back when they were playing with the genetic lock on the Ghost Portal. "If we multiply the DNA a thousandfold, that will give her even more genetic material to grow from."

Jack studied Phantom with a strange look on his face. "I guess part human doesn't just mean human-like traits, huh?"

The ghost looked at his feet and nodded.

Maddie paled as the implications sunk in. Of course. If this one little piece of hers "turned" human, what about the rest? And what did that mean about Phantom—the original?

"I'll explain everything, I promise. Just… just save her first, please."

Jack nodded slowly. "Alright. But don't think you're leaving without giving us answers."

* * *

Time passed. The DNA replicator whirred. Jack disappeared for a half hour and returned with another dozen boxes of jello, a thermos of coffee, and a package of fudge. Maddie took notes on the girl's progress—slow, but promising— and tested different samples of ectoplasm, looking for ways to stabilize and purify the ectoplasm.

Phantom planted himself in a chair next to the tank, one elbow on the table, eyes on the tadpole form swimming in the bright liquid. He'd sipped half-heartedly at the water Maddie pushed on him and even agreed to eat some jello, but refused to leave. Jack had produced a blanket from somewhere and dropped it around the ghost's shoulders. Maddie had even offered the couch upstairs, but he'd just waved her off.

Eventually, though, the ghost's head drooped. Maddie watched, fascinated, as he nodded. After what she'd heard Jazz tell him, not to mention everything she had learned today, she couldn't help the feeling of anticipation. Something was about to happen. She stood quietly, a sheaf of papers in her hands as if she were reading, though her eyes kept sliding off the page and back to the strange ghost hybrid.

Phantom's chin drooped to his chest, then he jerked alert. He glanced at the tank and shifted, propping himself up on the table with one arm. It was no use; soon his eyes fell half shut, hazy and unfocused. His head sank down to rest on the table; clenched fists relaxed.

Maddie watched this progression; it felt so surreal. Their up-until-recently number one hunting target had just fallen asleep in the middle of their laboratory.

Phantom's aura flashed, condensing into a halo of white around his body. Maddie clutched the papers to her chest, startled. What on earth…

The halo split and peeled away, like a translucent veil suddenly whisked off, and then—Phantom _changed._ It left him without an aura. With... human flesh, and black hair, and—

Maddie's mouth formed a silent ' _Oh.'_

A lab explosion. Ectoplasmic DNA. Near-human physiology. _I promise, I'll explain everything. Just—save her first._ Oh. Danny. _Oh._

"Jack," Maddie whispered, afraid to move.

Jack turned, and saw Danny asleep under the blanket where Phantom had sat moments before. The tray with its glass tubes of samples nearly tipped out of his hands. "Sufferin—"

Maddie shushed him, and he broke off, fumbling to rebalance the tray. He shoved it onto a clear patch of worktable, then turned and stared down at his son.

"He just… changed." Maddie told him in an undertone. She gestured helplessly. "I don't know how… he just…" Keeping up a ghost form must be conscious reflex, she realized now that she thought of it. That idea made her relieved; that meant ghost wasn't the default. That meant… _probably_ meant, that Danny was still alive. Whatever else he might be.

Jack's big hand came up to rub at the back of his neck. "So it _is_ him," he murmured.

Maddie started and turned to look at her husband. "You knew?"

"I was starting to wonder. Haven't you noticed my aim's been _more_ horrible lately?" He grinned. Then his face fell. "I mean… I just had idle suspicions. Nothing serious. Danny's not dead, that was the kicker. I was sure of that." He crossed the room and put his hand on Danny's forehead, brushing back the dark hair and studying the sleeping face. "A ghost that was also alive and had human qualities, that just wasn't scientifically possible. At least we didn't think so till today."

They both turned to stare at the containment tube, where the amorphous silhouette was beginning to look more and more like the body of a child.

"You think she has a human side?" Jack asked.

Maddie thought about the shapeless form Phantom had carried across the living room and shuddered. Somehow imagining her as human made her disintegration a thousand times worse. "If this psuedo-human DNA's anything to go by, then she has to. Her ghost body wouldn't know how to absorb the food she'd need to maintain cellular function."

He nodded. "The ghost core must be tied into her nervous system—maybe the electrocardial pattern. See that flicker? Just like a heartbeat." He leaned forward, grinning. The flickers of light through the ectoplasm played over his square jaw and lit green sparks in blue eyes. "It's a symbiotic system. Two physiologies totally interlinked. How cool is that?"

Maddie massaged her temples. Jack might be able to enjoy the cool factor of this, but that didn't solve the main problem; this girl wasn't out of the woods yet. "Symbiotic would mean it's a _working_ system."

"We've just got to puzzle out the weak parts and buffer it. It works for Danny, doesn't it?" Jack picked up the slide with Phantom-no, Danny's ectoplasmic sample and waved it at Maddie. "If we can figure him out, she'll be a-okay."

Maddie dropped into a nearby chair. "How can you take to this so easily? Our son's a ghost-a hybrid ghost! I can barely wrap my mind around it."

"I know Mads, but you saw the slide. All the genetic information's there. It's him, just ghostlier."

"I know that." Just half an hour ago, she'd been thinking how much Phantom reminded her of Danny. The irony made her want to laugh and cry all at once. "He's always acted like him, hasn't he?"

"You gotta admit." Jack leaned back on the table and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. It had a deep crack in it from the tremors the beast had caused. "Our son's one cool kid. He's not just any ghost. He's a hero, and a dang good one. He risked his life for everybody today, and yeah, I want some answers, but..." Jack shrugged, then smiled. "The main thing is, I'm proud of him."

"Risked his life..." Maddie echoed, shivering.

Something about Jazz's earlier conversation with him rang in her mind, something that sent red flags flaring across her nerves. _Some broken bones. Nothing fatally bad..._

Maddie pushed her chair back and hurried over to Danny, grabbing his hand. It felt clammy and cold. His skin had gone grey. "Jack, he's barely breathing—"

She pulled the blanket off his shoulders and gasped as she spotted the red and purple bruise that took up Danny's entire right side. The ribs were lumpy and swollen, bulging weirdly under the skin. Something was damaged—badly damaged. Why hadn't he _said_ anything?

Jack pushed her aside and gathered up Danny in his arms. "Get the keys," he rapped out, already running up the stairs.

* * *

 _tbc..._

* * *

 **A/N:**

Just in case you thought I'd run out of cliffhangers... and what's this? A reveal scene in one of my fics? Two, in fact? Betcha didn't see that one coming! This chapter wraps up our little adventure in flashbacks. It's been fun puzzling out what happened before the main story, trying to work out a good end to the fight but keeping it to a few quick flashes of scenes.

Thanks for your reviews, everyone! Two more chapters to go!

-Hj


	6. All Things Nice

A hand encircled her arm and a sharp pain jabbed into her shoulder. The sensation of the needle jumped down her arm and made her fingernails ache, and whatever had been in the syringe crawled like an icy worm into her body. Every nerve ending felt frayed and bare. Dani knew better than to struggle, but she couldn't help whimpering.

Instead of a reprimand or a quick cuff, someone muttered something indistinct and a hand stroked her back. This strangeness frightened her—her muddled mind thrown into terror by the uncertainty. Where? Who? Coolness embraced her, closing over her head, soothing the parts of her body that hung raw and open. The icy worm worked its way into her core and exploded with energy.

Dani gasped and stiffened, suddenly very, very awake. Her eyes wouldn't focus on anything—all a bright wash of green that stung her eyes and made her head throb. That cold, cold feeling rushed to every corner of her body from her fingertips to the ends of her hair. It felt like she was standing in a tunnel with a winter gale slicing right through her body.

When it was coldest—colder than thought, colder than whiteness—something in her _snapped_ like a joint clicking back into place. White-cold turned white-hot, and warmth trickled from her core out to her fingertips. A heavy thudding took its place in her chest. She realized she was swimming, floating in a world of green light. She was warm, but everything around her had suddenly become unbearably cold, and she needed to breathe—really breathe, air, soon.

Panic sang through her. She flailed, swimming for the surface. Her head broke free. Dani gasped and choked. Some part of her noticed a crash, a shout, rubber gloves gripping her by the arms. Exhaustion pulled her back under, into the black.

* * *

Somewhere in the middle of her bath Dani woke up enough to be embarrassed. She was sitting on a plastic stool set up in a bathtub, naked except for a towel in her lap. Half-congealed ectoplasmic goop clung to her skin, itchy and cold. The biting, limey smell made her shudder. Her wet hair hung long and slimy over her shoulder.

Someone sat on the side of the tub a little behind her, just outside of her line of vision. That person was in the middle of bathing her, hands sponging ectoplasm off her shoulders. Dani's face turned crimson and she pulled away.

"I...I can get it, thanks," Dani said, snatching the washcloth from the hands—a woman's, with neatly manicured nails—and scrubbing at her own skin. It stung, but in a blissfully _real_ and solid way. She wasn't on the verge of melting into a puddle. In fact, she felt better than she had in a long time.

"Gently!" The woman grabbed her hand and pulled away the cloth, frowning at the reddish patch where Dani had rubbed it raw. "You're skin's still too new for that kind of treatment. Just relax and let me help you."

She dipped the washcloth in the sink and squeezed out the excess water, then moved to Dani's back. Greenish water flowed past Dani's feet and gurgled down the drain.

Dani clutched at the towel draped across her legs. She tugged it a little higher. "You're… Maddie, aren't you?"

The hands on her back paused. "You know me?"

Dani shrugged. "I know what you look like." Saying that she used to talk to Maddie's CGI double because no one else was around probably wouldn't go over well. She nibbled her lip, weighing her options, then added quietly, "You're a ghost hunter."

Maddie's hands continued to wring out the washcloth. "I'm also Danny's mother," she said firmly.

Considering all the ectoplasm and what she remembered from earlier, that probably meant that they knew about her ghostliness. What else did they know?

As if reading her mind, Maddie patted her shoulder. "You'll be safe here," she said. "The ghost shield is up and the portal doors are closed. As far as we're concerned, you're here to stay."

 _Here to stay._ Dani rolled those words over in her mind. As a prisoner? Or… she gulped. They _were_ scientists. Maybe they wanted to experiment. Danny wouldn't let them do that, right? Where was he?

"Vlad and I… discussed things." Maddie continued. Her voice hardened. "Thoroughly. He won't be making any claims to you."

Dani twisted around to gape at the woman, fears momentarily forgotten; Maddie's steely eyes and pursed lips looked _nothing_ like AI Maddie. "You stood up to Vlad? He's a _really_ bad guy."

"Yes," the woman agreed curtly. "Evil." She wrung out the cloth with a sharp twist. "But so did you, sweetie."

"I guess so." It wasn't like she'd had a choice. It was either all or nothing with Vlad.

"You're a brave girl. You're a lot like Danny that way."

"Is he okay? I feel like I… hurt him... " Dani shuddered and shook her head to clear it. Those weren't exactly memories—more like convictions—impressions of pain and an awful feeling of exposure and brightness and the air tearing away at her mind—and—her memory hop-skipped over it, like a stone whizzing over still, dark water, refusing to settle.

The ghost hunter stopped, pulling her arms in toward her body, her eyes creasing with sadness. Then she smiled, a small, tight smile. "A little. It's not your fault, though. You were in bad shape."

Dani knew that. Her legs had boiled away in front of her eyes. You didn't forget something like that. She lifted her hands and admired the soft, raisiny fingertips. She counted them. There were ten. "You saved me."

"Danny did. And you saved _us_ first." Dani stiffened as Maddie pulled her close, giving her a quick, very gentle squeeze. "It seems to run in the family."

Dani's face glowed and she fought the urge to squirm—half wanting her to keep doing it, half wanting to phase through the floor and—

"Yikes!" She slipped through the stool and fell ankle-deep into the ceiling before she had the presence of mind to grab Maddie's arms and cling for dear life. _Great job, genius. Keep reminding the ghost hunter you're a ghost, why don't you?_

Maddie only laughed and pulled her up, stooping to retrieve the towel that hand fallen into the tub. "Well, I guess we know your abilities are in order. I didn't mean to startle you."

"No—it's—I'm just," Dani grabbed the towel and flushed darker. "Sorry."

"Don't be." The woman stood up and laid the washcloth across the sink. "That's most of it, anyway. I'm going to turn the shower on now, but don't try to stand up yet, okay?" She waited until Dani nodded, then twisted the knob. Warm water cascaded over her shoulders for a long, glorious moment. Then the knob squeaked and a new, fluffy white towel dropped on her head.

"I think you can handle the drying part, right?" Dani nodded, and Maddie smiled. "There are new clothes for you here in the the basket. I'll step outside and be here if you need me."

Muscles and bones worked obediently, if a little wobbly, helping her step out of the tub and stand on the wooly orange bath mat. Dani patted herself dry with meticulous care; her skin tingled, stinging a little even from the soft brush of the terry cloth, but it felt so nice to _feel_ at all that she found herself smiling.

A soft, brand-new pair of leggings went over her new legs. The tags were still on them. They smelled like a department store. Next came a red t-shirt—it fit close to her body, which felt oddly snug after living in oversized clothes for most of her life. Odd, but nice. Kind of like the hug from Maddie. A lacy, girly thing at the bottom of the basket turned out to be a sweater—sort of. Dani wrinkled her nose as she inspected it; not exactly her style, but she felt chilly even with the shirt, so she begrudgingly pulled it on.

As she gathered her wet hair into a messy bun, Maddie's voice drifted in from the hallway. "We figured you'd be waking up today, and we wanted to have a little get-together. You think you're up for it?"

Great, even _more_ awkward people who would probably want to give her hugs. She peered around the doorway, trying to gauge the woman's mood. "What if I say no?"

Maddie mock-sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "Then I'll go downstairs and find somebody _else_ to eat all that bacon pepperoni pizza."

 _Pizza?_ Dani darted out of the bathroom. "What are we waiting for?!"

At the end of the hall stood the stairs—way steeper than Dani remembered them. Her legs felt weak and rubbery, and she was out of breath just from crossing the hall. Maddie caught her arm as she teetered at the top.

"Don't go breaking your neck and undoing all our hard work," she chided, then slipped her arm around Dani's shoulders and helped her down. "This is Danny's first day out of bed, too. You can celebrate together."

Worry and guilt pricked at Dani. "Was he that hurt?"

"Shattered ribs." Maddie's hands tightened on her arm. "Danny fell asleep down in the lab. He'd pushed himself past exhaustion between the battle and what happened after. One of his lungs had collapsed; he was slowly suffocating right in front of us. If we hadn't noticed…"

Glancing up timidly, Dani saw the raw fear written across Maddie's features. Something told her she ought to say something, but she had no idea what. She touched the woman's arm, awkward and shy. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Maddie blinked down at her, coming back from whatever dark place her mind had gone. Her grim tone brightened to its earlier pleasant ring and she smiled down at Dani. "It's alright now. He's fine. It was just… a little too close."

As they crossed the living room, laughter and chatter drifted toward them. Dani balked despite the tantalizing smells. "That sounds like a lot of people, I—"

"Just the family," Maddie said, and propelled her gently through the door.

* * *

 _tbc..._

* * *

 **A/N:**

And off we go to the end! I'm sure the hospital trip would've been exciting, but this _is_ a fic about Danielle, so you'll just have to imagine what happened there. All that's left is a little wrapping up, and this story will be at a close.

 **Thank you** **for your reviews and feedback on this little fic!** I'm glad you're enjoying it!

Re: updating schedule, it's... weekly-ish? There's only one chapter left after this, which is complete, so it'll be up no later than mid-January.

Have a happy new year, everyone!

-Hj


	7. That's What Little Girls are Made Of

Dani found herself gently pushed into the bright, clean, crowded Fenton kitchen. A blue banner hung over the stairs that led to the lab—it read CONGRATULATIONS in huge block letters. Jack stood at the stove, stirring a huge pot full of something bubbling and steaming, whistling to himself. Jazz sat in a chair next to him with her nose in a book, though her eyes were on the noisy trio across the room.

The kitchen table had been pushed to one side. On its surface sat every kind of junk food Dani craved— fried chicken, buffalo wings, steaming piles of hot dogs and a huge, greasy bucket of popcorn, balanced on top of pizza boxes stacked three high. Jammed right in the center stood the mother of all cakes, four-tiered and coated in rosettes of blue icing.

Parked in easy reach of the table, Danny sat in a wheelchair with bandages on his bare feet and spiraling up his right leg. Sam sat next to him with her crutches tucked under her chair, black cast resting on the floor, and Tucker leaned against the wall, grinning despite the new, pink scars that stretched on his neck as he smiled.

For looking like in-patient escapees, they sure seemed to be having a good time.

Sam threw back her head and laughed. Tucker pounded the wall, eyes streaming. "No way dude, you're killing me."

"A _magenta football_ ," Danny insisted. "He's got all this crazy tech," Even more gauze peeked through the neck of the tent-sized orange t-shirt he wore as Danny swept out his arm. "Billions of dollars of junk all around him, and he didn't have a clue we were coming. Vlad's just totally speechless—and get this, he's _blushing neon pink_. Then Mom marches right up to him, not even batting an eye that he's in ghost form, and says—"

"Repeat that kind of language and you'll find yourself grounded," Maddie cut in, but she didn't sound upset to Dani.

Danny stopped mid-sentence and threw up his hands. He beamed. "Danielle! My favorite cousin ever!" He shoved himself away from the wall and the wheelchair spun across the kitchen, bringing him in range to catch Dani in a tight hug. She squeaked in surprise for the second time that day. His arms felt warm around her shoulders; an icy spark jumped between them—their ghost cores flickering in recognition.

"Don't mind him, he's on painkillers," Sam drawled.

"So are you," Danny pointed out, sitting back.

"Yet somehow you're the only one making an idiot out of yourself."

"Can't I be glad to see Danielle? She almost died, remember?"

"We _all_ almost died. Thus the party." Sam waved her spoon at the banner.

"It's a half party," Tucker said, and grinned. "Half congratulations on saving everybody, half hooray we're all alive. Get it? Because you're both halfas, and—"

Sam elbowed Tucker. "Yeah, we get it. It's still lame."

Dani's eyes darted from one person to another, her mind a whirl of questions. These were Danny's friends, she remembered them. But his parents… they knew about his ghost half? What about Vlad? And the town, and… but the question that tumbled from her lips instead was, "The big ghost is gone?"

Danny beamed. "Yep. The GIW carted off that big hunk of ectoplasm on a truck, but we zapped the core. It's history. You're officially a hero."

"They talked about you on TV!" Jack interjected. He jabbed at her with a spoon. "'Phantom Pair Thwarts Ghostmageddon!'"

Maddie nodded, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe. "There's been a lot of speculation on what happened to the heroes after the attack. Certain experts," here she gestured at Jack and herself, "have hinted that you're off recovering and will reappear in a week or two. There's talk of having an official Phantom Day in your honor."

Danny, who had rolled himself back to claim a half-eaten hot dog from the table, let it drop to his plate in undisguised horror. "Two _more_ weeks?"

Slipping over to the table, Dani grabbed the popcorn. Sam patted the chair next to her, and Dani sat, trying her hardest not to blush again. Or worse, turn invisible. It felt weird having so many people look right at her.

Tucker leaned down and swiped some popcorn. "This should be good," he whispered conspiratorially in Dani's ear.

Danny sat bolt upright in his wheelchair. "Do you have _any idea_ how many ghosts are gonna attack between now and then? At least…"

He looked at Jazz for help, but she raised her hands, eyes on the book in her lap. "This one's all you, little brother."

Danny scowled. "Well, It'll be a lot. Ghosts like havoc. Now that the beast's aura is fading they'll be all over the rebuilding sites. I can't quit hero work for _two more weeks_ , Mom, that's crazy!"

"We will handle it," Maddie said calmly, cutting into the cake. "You are not fighting anyone until your body heals completely. I will ecto-cuff you to your bed if necessary, sweetie."

"Okay, one, I think that fits under the whole 'no using your weapons against me' thing we discussed. Two," light burst out of his chest and he transformed from human to ghost, floating effortlessly into the air, "This body doesn't need to breathe so broken ribs are no problem. See?"

To prove his point, he drifted over to the table and swiped icing off the cake right under Maddie's nose, then threw himself on his back and lounged hammock-style.

Maddie only sighed and set the plate of cake in Dani's lap. "Let me know if you want some ice cream with that, Danielle."

"You're going to hurt yourself, showoff," Jazz said.

"Am not," Danny retorted, stuffing the fingerful of icing in his mouth.

The doorbell rang. Danny yelped and his transformation reverted, leaving him hanging in midair. Tucker lunged and caught him, making a funny little _oof_ , his glasses askew. He dumped his friend into the wheelchair and tromped off to answer the door.

Danny laughed silently, clutching his ribs. "Owowow."

The technogeek came back with a funny little smile on his face. "Guess who answered her invite?"

Dani started, forkful of cake halfway to her mouth.

Valerie Gray appeared in the doorway. She was a good match for the trio already in the kitchen, a thick white band of gauze around her head and one arm in a sling. She looked pale and tired, and blinked in outright confusion at the banner and the decadent spread of food.

Finally, someone she actually knew besides Danny. Dani waved and nearly dislodged the cake from her fork. "Hi Valerie!"

Valerie frowned, looking puzzled. "Danielle? What are you doing here?"

"She lives here now," Maddie said firmly, putting both her hands on Dani's shoulders. Dani felt heat flush across her cheeks, _again_ , and she gave Valerie a shy smile. They wanted her here, and not to study, or for any reason she could guess except that she was Danny's "cousin." It felt nice.

"She's a bona fide Fenton!" Jack added, raising a chocolatey spoon in a triumphant arc. "Soon it'll be official! My wife put a good word in with the mayor, the paperwork's almost a done deal. Glad you could make it!"

Valerie took a step back. "No—no, I'm not here to… I came to—" She cut herself off, took a deep breath, and straightened. "Can I speak to you privately, Danny?"

He picked up the ketchup and squirted another layer onto his already well-seasoned hot dog. "You're here to talk about me being Phantom, right?"

Flinching, Valerie glanced sharply at Danny's parents. Her eyes widened. "They _know_? And they're okay with the whole—"

"Well, _okay_ is probably too strong a word, but yeah. After the whole mega-monster thing it all came out."

Dani watched this exchange, quietly curious. She'd been wondering the same thing.

"We're proud of our son," Jack said, slapping Danny on the shoulder. "He's a bangup ghost hunter."

"Banged-up, you mean," Tucker interjected.

Danny snickered and took a huge bite of hot dog. " _Schee_?" he managed around the mouthful of meat.

Valerie put her hands on her hips. "What kind of pain meds did they give you?"

"Way more than I'm getting," Tucker complained. "But then he did stay in the hospital longer, so it's a tradeoff."

Danny swallowed and shrugged. "Uh, yeah, a lot, but that's beside the point. Weird as it is, I don't have a lot of secrets right now. Not with the people here, anyway. And I'm starting to like that. So whatever you want to say, go right ahead."

Valerie's fists knotted and she glared at the floor. For a long moment Dani was sure she'd just turn around and storm off. "I came to… to apologize," she ground out at last. Then the rest came in a rush. "It took me way too long to figure out what was staring me in the face, and I blamed you for a lot of stuff, and—I'm sorry for the thing in the basement and blaming you for the dog, and hunting you. I wouldn't have done if it I'd known you were—who you really are, that is. You have to believe that. So I guess I'm saying I'm sorry. Alright? I'm sorry."

A raw, uncomfortable silence filled the room. Dani stared at her toes and clutched her plate of cake. Valerie had been kind to her from the moment they met. It had never occurred to Dani that Danny and her rescuer were enemies. For some reason it made her feel guilty.

"Cake?" Danny offered, tipping his head toward the table.

Dani looked up. Valerie stared at him.

"It's chocolate. That's your favorite kind, right?"

The girl's brow knotted like a thunderstorm. "Were you not… _listening_? Do you have any idea how _hard_ that was to say in front of everybody?"

"Val, relax. Look around. My parents are ghost hunters. Sam's been an evil plant. Danielle was Vlad's minion. Everybody in this room has nearly killed me at some point, on purpose or otherwise." He picked up the ketchup, studied his hot dog, then squirted on another layer. "Except Tuck."

Tucker extracted the ketchup from Danny's hand and put it out of reach. "Well actually dude, remember that one time with the wish thing?"

"Oh. Oh yeah." Danny scratched the back of his neck and smiled. "You see? So stop looking so tormented and have some cake."

Maddie moved over to the table and cut another slice, putting it on a paper plate and offering it to Valerie. "We understand more than you realize, believe me. Please stay."

Valerie studied Maddie, then Jack, then gave Danny a long, hard look. She took the plate. Dani gave a silent sigh of relief and let her fork drop to her plate, releasing a breath she hadn't noticed holding.

"Thing in the basement, huh?" Tucker smirked. Danny ducked his head and Sam glared at him suspiciously.

"Shut up, Foley," Valerie muttered, turning red. She snatched an offered fork from Maddie and pulled out a chair, plunking herself down beside Dani. Nudging her shoulder, Valerie nodded her approval. "Good job kicking monster butt, you."

Dani gave her a grin, some of her usual cockiness returning. "Easy peasy."

Valerie stuffed a piece of cake in her mouth. Her eyes went from Dani to Danny as she chewed. "So are you two really cousins?"

Dani didn't miss the significant look that went between Jack and Maddie Fenton. "Not… exactly," she began, instantly shy again, stabbing at her own slice. "I'm-"

"More like siblings," Danny interrupted. He'd somehow gotten the ketchup again and his hot dog was vanishing in a flood of red paste as he squeezed it with both hands. "Or delayed twins? Uh…" His eyes met Dani's and he smiled, blue eyes creasing into crescents. "It's kind of a long story…"

"Save it," Valerie said, and tugged at the nearest box of pizza. "I've had enough staggering revelations for now."

Dani took a bite of her cake. It was rich and warm and solid, like the room, and the people around her, and her own skin. For some reason, everything tasted just a little bit like lime jello.

* * *

~ end ~

* * *

 **A/N:**

That's all she wrote, folks!

Blah, too tired and stuffy to come up with much of an an A/N. Insert imaginary author commentary here, hehe. I hope you've enjoyed the story, and thanks for your reviews, especially **Verdantia Akalixi** for the typo catch and **AlyssPotter** who reminded me I hadn't posted this. See you in my other fics!

-Hj


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